The Gold, a briskly intelligent crime thriller set in 1980s Britain starring Hugh Bonneville and Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), and inspired by a real-life heist and its aftermath, gets off to a high-octane start as six petty crooks quite literally stumble upon 7,000 bars of pure gold bullion, then scramble to unload it as police close in. Who’s headed for handcuffs, and who might pull off the score of a lifetime?
Find out why The Gold is worth its weight and why you can’t miss its Season 1 premiere on MASTERPIECE Sunday, October 5th at 10/9c. Subscribe to the MASTERPIECE Email Newsletter for updates on Season 1 and news of Season 2.
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The Gold Stars Hugh Bonneville and Jack Lowden
The fallout from this infamous British robbery surges to life with a top-tier cast playing both sides of the law. The good guys are led by Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington) as by-the-book DCI Brian Boyce. He’s joined by Charlotte Spencer (Sanditon, Ted Lasso) and Emun Elliott (Guilt) as determined detectives Nikki Jennings and Tony Brightwell.
Jack Lowden (Slow Horses) and Dominic Cooper (The Devil’s Trouble) headline the criminal side of things as wily fence Kenneth Noye and soulless lawyer Edwyn Cooper to rave reviews. “Lowden nails the steely insouciance of career criminal Kenneth Noye,” says The Guardian (UK). And Cooper may be “the most intriguing character while he’s on screen,” says Paste Magazine.
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The Gold is Based on a True Story
The real-life events inspiring The Gold would be unbelievable it they hadn’t actually happened. In November 1983, blue-collar criminals broke into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport, only expecting to snatch around a million in foreign currency. Instead—and quite by accident—they stumbled upon £26 million worth of pure gold bricks—worth around $137 million today. Turning that haul into spendable money sparked a wave of financial crime that rippled for decades.
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The Gold is a High-Stakes Cat and Mouse Chase
The Gold is a deftly plotted crime drama that picks up speed from the first scene and keeps the pressure on. While the story opens with a robbery, it quickly shifts focus to the theft’s aftermath. It’s not just about recovering the stolen loot but dismantling an expanding criminal empire that could reshape London’s underworld.
With a thread of dark humor and a cast of colorful characters, the show offers a fresh take on the tangled world of those who try to profit from crime. In The Gold, the heist sets things in motion—but the real story is what happened next.
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The Gold Season 1 Receives High Praise
The Gold‘s story spans two seasons. Season 1 struck ratings gold when about 8.7 million viewers tuned in for The Gold’s UK premiere, according to Deadline. The critics agreed:
“A stylish procedural that’s gripping from beginning to end.” TIME
“A 24-carat drama about one of the UK’s most shocking robberies.” The Guardian (UK)
“The Gold, a sharply intelligent crime drama, isn’t about priceless art; it is about what “priceless” means.” Wall Street Journal
[Delivers] “prime cuts of the fundamental genre pleasures; criminals doing criminal stuff, detectives trying to stop them, and an entire vivid universe that exists between them.” Vulture
“As watchable as any thriller of the past year. The casting alone is enough to knock you over.” Paste Magazine
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Watch The Gold’s Season 1 Trailer
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The Gold Season 2 is Much Anticipated
MASTERPIECE on PBS has announced that it will air the second and final season of The Gold, which addresses the far-reaching consequences of the Brink’s-Mat story; a risky dive into international money laundering and organized crime, promising a nail-biting series of dramatic manhunts.
Hugh Bonneville, Charlotte Spencer, and Emun Elliott return as the detectives spearheading the longest and most expensive investigation in Metropolitan Police history. Joining the cast for Season 2 are faces MASTERPIECE viewers may recognize: from Tom Hughes (Victoria) to Stefanie Martini (Maigret) and Thomas Coombes (Miss Austen, Moonflower Murders) to Tamsin Topolski (Guilt).
